Daily Search Forum Recap: 03/21/08

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Weekly Search Buzz Roundup - 03/21/08: Universal Porn, Malicious Links and SES NY 2008
Finally, some closure to a really long three weeks. I can finally relax (though the work doesn't stop). SES NY wrapped up yesterday and we're ready to get back to some normalcy around here. With that said, what happened this week? Today is Purim Before we get into search events, Happy Purim to everyone! We have a nice theme on Search Engine Roundtable today. Earlier this week was St. Patty's Day Happy belated St. Patrick's

Search SEO Forums and More with Twing
We have Google's Blog Search and Technorati for blog search, but has anyone found a reputable forum search engine? Enter Twing. Twing allows you to search and discover forum discussion. We do that here but this is something different. Find content from long ago and use the tag cloud to get additional inspiration. Here's a screenshot of the system in action. Sort you results by relevance and date and then even search forums with the

An Update on Yahoo Search Marketing
Over at WebmasterWorld, moderator werty asks about the quality of YSM traffic. Has it changed, improved, or worsened? Within the past few months, people have been seeing an increase of quality with Yahoo! Search Marketing. You can now exclude partners who send low-quality traffic as per our update in January. The low quality domains need to be entered by hand and there is a 250-domain limit at this time. UK members aren't seeing any changes,

One-Fourth of All Internet Users Cannot Perform a Simple Google Search
Usability expert Jakob Nielsen blogged about how difficult it is to perform a Google search: If you thought it's easy to get to Google, think again. In our current round of usability research, only 76% of users who expressed a desire to run a Google search were successful. In other words, 1/4 of users who wanted to use Google couldn't do so. (Instead, they either completely failed to get to any search engine or ended

Google Testing Google Suggestions on Main Google.com Search Page?
A WebmasterWorld thread has two members reporting seeing Google Suggest like suggestions as the default feature of the main Google.com search page. Typically, if you go to Google.com, you can type in a query and press search. But these users are seeing an auto-complete feature that you would typically only see on Google Suggest. Here is a screen capture of how it may look: Can this be coming to the main Google.com search results? Possibly.

Will Yahoo's Radio Commercials Help Take Market Share From Google?
Last week, I received a preview of some of the radio commercials Yahoo just started running. The commercials are aimed at trying to build more awareness of Yahoo Search. Some of the commercials target Google. Elinor Mills has some quotes from some of the ads. Search engines like Google get you lost in all the links, but not Yahoo search. You won't find that on your Google page! I am going to see if I

Why Does Google Hate Link Manipulation?
Anyone who knows the Google Web Spam team well, knows that they all have a huge distaste for link manipulation. In my opinion, it is more than just a distance for some of the web spam team members, specifically Matt Cutts. Matt Cutts, a great guy, Google engineer since January 2000, has a strong, deep, gut wrenching distaste for link manipulation, in my opinion. Where do I get this opinion from? I don't think from

Google Analytics Benchmarking Now Live
Last night, the Google Analytics Benchmarking feature went live for those who opted in to the program. More on how to take advantage of that feature over here. Here are some stats from my personal blog. You can also filter down the benchmarking to specific industries by selecting the "category list." Here are some of the options, broken open - the list will continue to expand as more sites are included: Note: Google doesn't ask

Google Shuts Down Support For AdWords API Version 10
A couple days ago, Google has officially shut off support for version 10 of the AdWords API. A WebmasterWorld thread has one advertiser who is very upset, claiming Google did not warn him. Our system stopped working today, just as everyone is about to go on vacation for Easter. Just when our programmers are hard to contact. Just when we are most likely to be attacked (our competitors guess we won't be monitoring as closely